Comments

Gloria Hofer said on Oct 11, 2011

I am a bit confused by this project blog as I am not sure what the purpose is. I know it is supposed to be about communication and collaboration, but I am not sure which charge is the one driving this site. I am missing a sticky at the top (header) type of post that tells me what this site is about. What is the mission or charge? I spoke to one of the committee members who told me it was at the bottom of what I think is random information because there is no context for the blog. So, I scrolled down to the bottom of the posts, and now I am still confused. The first post says it is about Groupwise email review. The third post from the bottom has a welcome to the SCU task force and talks about the charge to identify campus needs for collaboration and communications services... If this is the real charge for this Project blog then shouldnt that be at the top of the page? Not a list of the members. I would put this information as a link on who is a member on this task force, but I would not put it as a post.
It seems to me that a project blog, would have a header section with a description of the project, start date and end date. I would put the timeline as a click-through to a static page that has the timeline. I would also have a link to the members that would click-through to a static page with the members, and the current status of the project.
Then the posts would come at milestones that could have categories assigned, such as email, collaboration tools (e.g. Google+), etc. Each of these milestone posts would capture the background processes, findings, strategies, ideas, thoughts, outcomes, and then would invite the community to weigh in.
The project blog documents the development and progress of a project and can invite the community to not only follow and understand the decisions, findings, and implementations but also comment. The posts should create a vehicle for dialogue and community engagement.
One more thing, I think that the comments should have a choice of being anonymous. I am sure this is a moderated site.

Terri Griffith said on Oct 11, 2011

Great ideas all. I'm going to jump on the foundational ones right now and we will all keep the others in mind as move along. One of the charges the taskforce takes very seriously is how we learn and share with others these different ways of communicating. One "work example" (looking forward to covering work examples in a future post) I gain from your comment is that projects could benefit by being able to draw on project-specific templates so we don't have to design from scratch each time.

Terri Griffith said on Oct 13, 2011

We've added a better description and made the list of members permanent on the top left. Looking to a group discussion on anonymity. Most enterprise community leaders suggest identification unless the topics are expressly "hot" - pay, leader feedback etc --- but that there also has to be a climate of safety so people feel that they can speak honestly. Universities are a bit unique given some people have tenure and others don't. Sounds like a great post topic.